Smilodon
Smilodon was a genus of prehistoric cat belonging to the Machairodontinae. It was the last and largest of the sabertooth cats, ranging from North to South America during the late Pliocene to the end of the Pleistocene. Commonly referred to as a Saber-toothed tiger, it is by no means related to modern tigers or other pantherines, as it belongs to a completely extinct line of cats. Information Smilodon had relatively short, muscular legs and a short, bobbed tail a bit like that of a modern day bobcat. Smilodon’s front legs were especially powerful and its body was adapted for springing onto prey, but it was not a very fast runner and could not adapt to chase after fast-running prey like deer. Instead, it hunted relatively slower animals such as Macrauchenia, Toxodon, some species of mammoths and mastodon, and ground sloths. Smilodon’s hunting behavior was one of ambush, sneaking as close to its prey as possible before leaping on it. After pinning its victim down with its powerful front legs, Smilodon would use its powerful neck muscles to drive its saber teeth into the neck of its prey. Some scientists disagree with this, and believe it targeted the belly of its prey. However, no modern cat hunts with a strategy that aims for the belly. Such strategies are filled with problems; aiming for the stomachs of prey leaves the cat vulnerable to a retaliatory kick. Another problem regarding belly bite strategies is that stomach bites using saber teeth only create shallow flesh wounds that create only superficial damage. A bite to the throat meanwhile, allows the cat to sever the jugular veins, carotid arteries and trachea while simultaneously controlling and stifling the animal's movement without much risk of tooth breakage. Smilodon’s enormous canines were likely an adaptation for making swifter kills than modern cats. Such effective weapons allowed Smilodon to kill quickly and eat fast without fear of competitors stealing its hard-won meals. Smilodon cubs have been found in the La Brea tar pits, and it is made clear from their dentition that they were born with teeth, not unlike hyenas, and that their milk sabers were serrated for eating portions of a carcass that adults could not. They also took three years to grow to full maturity, with their adult sabers growing in around one-and-a-half years of age. Scientists debate whether Smilodon was social. One study of African predators found that social predators like lions and spotted hyenas respond more to the distress calls of prey than solitary species. Since S. fatalis fossils are common at the La Brea Tar Pits, and were likely attracted by the distress calls of stuck prey, this could mean that this species was social as well. One critical study claims that the study neglects other factors, such as body mass (heavier animals are more likely to get stuck than lighter ones), intelligence (some social animals, like the American lion, may have avoided the tar because they were better able to recognize the hazard), lack of visual and olfactory lures, the type of audio lure, and the length of the distress calls (the actual distress calls of the trapped prey animals would have lasted longer than the calls used in the study). The author of that study ponders what predators would have responded if the recordings were played in India, where the otherwise solitary tigers are known to aggregate around a single carcass. The authors of the original study responded that though effects of the calls in the tar pits and the playback experiments would not be identical, this would not be enough to overturn their conclusions. In addition, they stated that weight and intelligence would not likely affect the results as lighter carnivores are far more numerous than heavy herbivores and the social (and seemingly intelligent) dire wolf is also found in the pits. Another argument for sociality is based on the healed injuries in several Smilodon fossils, which would suggest that the animals needed others to provide it food. This argument has been questioned, as cats can recover quickly from even severe bone damage and an injured Smilodon could survive if it had access to water. The brain of Smilodon was relatively small compared to other cat species. Some researchers have argued that Smilodon’s brain would have been too small for it to have been a social animal. An analysis of brain size in living big cats found no correlation between brain size and sociality. Another argument against Smilodon being social is that being an ambush hunter in closed habitat would likely have made group-living unnecessary, as in most modern cats. Yet it has also been proposed that being the largest predator in an environment comparable to the savanna of Africa, Smilodon may have had a social structure similar to modern lions, which possibly live in groups primarily to defend optimal territory from other lions (lions are the only social big cats today). Whether Smilodon was sexually dimorphic has implications for its reproductive behavior. Based on their conclusions that Smilodon fatalis had no sexual dimorphism, Van Valkenburgh and Sacco suggested in 2002 that, if the cats were social, they would likely have lived in monogamous pairs (along with offspring) with no intense competition among males for females. Likewise, Meachen-Samuels and Binder (2010) concluded that aggression between males was less pronounced in S. fatalis than in the American lion. Christiansen and Harris (2012) found that, as S. fatalis did exhibit some sexual dimorphism, there would have been evolutionary selection for competition between males. The structure of the hyoid bones suggest that Smilodon communicated by roaring, like modern big cats. The ability to roar may have implications for the social life of Smilodon. In-Game Smilodon will be in the early access of Prehistoric Kingdom. 2 species are depicted in the game as different skins, S. fatalis, and S. populator, with one skin of S. fatalis, and two skins of S. populator. Gallery c7aaff9576e9b09c6a6d2703937f1bf0.png|''Smilodon'' ontogeny Smilodon_skins.jpg|Old model and skins Smilodon_01_Preview.png|Feral/''S. fatalis'' Smilodon_02_Preview.png|Pampas/''S. populator'' Smilodon_03_Preview.png|Dauntless/''S. populator'' O_1dvuaqf6sera1pb92kh1g9qnlq7g.jpg O_1dvuara9316cb1f6rco1h7rgj47q.jpg Category:Carnivore Category:Mammals